Dungeons & Dragons
The OSR has established itself as a part of the RPG landscape. Regardless what you may think of it, it isn’t going away. After years of fractious arguments, divisions and uninformed hot air, I realized I haven’t made my contribution. It’s never too late to add fuel to the fire. Read more
In recent years Appendix N in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide has been discussed by RPG fans online. A series of posts by Jeffro Johnson at Castalia House convinced me reading through the list would be a worthwhile project. I started with Johnson’s own book. It gave an excellent survey Read more
An Echo, Resounding was written by Kevin Crawford in 2012 for Labyrinth Lord, a house-ruled clone of B/X Dungeons & Dragons. It attempts the laudable goal of adding domain level play to the B/X rule set. Domain level play was an assumed part of early editions of Dungeons & Dragons Read more
On March 31st the morbidly clueless Smithsonian Institution offered us 14 “facts” about Dungeons & Dragons as a puff piece promoting Hasbro’s D&D movie. I can’t think of a funnier way to spend time than looking over these “facts”. Let’s see how many they get right. 3 wrong, 9 right Read more
Gygax’s ring of 16 planes was a big idea in the late 70s. Their arrangement gave them relationships to each other that were organized around the twin axes of law/chaos and good/evil. They explained where clerics, priests, monsters and others got their supernatural aid and supplied an adventuring challenge for Read more
One of the purposes of the Planescape setting was to bring the Inner & Outer Planes of Gygax’s 1st Edition setting to the forefront. Although Planescape made some changes there really weren’t many. To get up to speed on what Planescape was building on I read some parts of Monster Read more
My interactions on MeWe this month have reminded me how important it is for RPG fans to contribute blog posts to inspire each other. Rather than considering a few people to be top tier thinkers and passively follow their blogs, we should all take time to hammer our thoughts into Read more
Razorfist and Jeffro Johnson both recommended the Solomon Kane stories of Robert E. Howard. Since Howard was a fellow Texan in his time I decided to pick up Del Rey’s The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (July 2004). The book collects all of Howard’s stories about that character along with Read more
“They don’t make them like they used to.” “You can’t live in the past.” Two expressions that seem to contradict each other. Many people would say the first expression sounds like an old person letting nostalgia cloud their judgement. These same people would tell you the second expression is a Read more
I got my copy of Original Adventures Reincarnated 2: The Isle of Dread. I’ll try to find time in the weeks ahead to read it through thoroughly (323 pages isn’t easy when you have children and are trying to learn new Web technologies). I noticed in the opening essays that Read more